Woman's Decision to Pursue a Career in Law Affirmed by Trip to Local Middle School

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Teaching is the most difficult job ever and God Bless those who can do it. It takes a very special person to know how to deal with those little shits.

Let me elaborate. I think I've mentioned before that I tutor at an inner-city middle school on Tuesday mornings. I'm dealing with extremely disadvantaged sixth graders who also all seem to have ADD. The turnover of students at the school is amazing--there are probably only 15-20 kids in the class, but there seems to be a new student every week, and a new student missing every week.

Today, there was a sub.

Holy Smokes.

Here's what I saw when I walked into the classroom: All students out of assigned seats and (for those who actually were sitting) sitting wherever they want, three students basically running around the classroom, three students sharpening pencils, two girls sitting at teacher's desk rifling through stuff, girl lounging on desk at front of room talking on phone, two boys fighting, two boys making paper airplanes and throwing them, boy pulling girl's braids, and girl making list of "Ugly Boys." There is only one student that is not talking or making noise in some way. The sub is standing at the front of the room, reading the directions for the day's exercise off a sheet of paper as kids basically run circles around him and throw stuff. No one listens to the directions, obviously. The next hour involves more of the same as the sub and I circle around the room attempting to convince the students to settle down and do their assignment (looking up words in the dictionary to find their meaning, then writing that meaning into "grade-level sentences"). The level of chaos was amazing. Simply amazing.